Jobless agonistes

HOPES had risen in the past week that America’s economic soft patch was ending. They have just been doused with a bucket of cold water. The job market showed further deterioration in June from May, the government reported today. The number of non-farm jobs rose a meager 18,000, lower even than May’s 25,000 number (itself revised down from the original estimate). The two months together mark a dramatic deceleration from the previous three when payroll growth averaged 215,000 per month.The unemployment rate, meanwhile, rose for the fourth consecutive month to 9.2%, from 9.1% in May. It was 8.8% in March. The economic recovery celebrated (if you could call it that) its second anniversary on July 1st, and in that time the unemployment rate has moved a lot while ending up almost exactly where it began. America has made almost no progress closing the output gap opened up by the recession. The U-6 unemployment rate, which includes people who have given up looking for jobs and part timers who want full time work, shot up to 16.2% from 15.8% and the average duration of unemployment hit a new high of 39.9 weeks. More women than men lost jobs. Indeed, since the recovery began, women have fared worse than men, a reversal of the pattern during the recession, as a new Pew study documents. Still, the male unemployment rate rose more last month than the female rate.Digging deeper, the details grow worse. Hourly wages failed to rise and the average work week shrank slightly—bad news for income and thus purchasing power. The survey of households, from which the unemployment rate is drawn, shows a much bigger plunge in employment, at 445,000, than the payroll survey. The household survey is less reliable but is still a useful check. It tells us the payroll report is not understating the strength of the job market.There is no good news in this report; in the category of "could have been worse," private sector job growth was better than the overall total, at 57,000 last month. Public employment fell, for the eighth consecutive month, led by more layoffs by state and local governments.The best explanation for the sharp slowdown in the jobs market is the confluence of bad luck that hit the economy this spring: a sharp increase in petrol prices, a series of natural disasters, and the Japanese tsunami and earthquake that interrupted supply chains in electronics, automobiles and other industries. Most of these temporary restraints have begun to lift. The weather is back to normal, petrol prices are down 10% (nearly 40 cents per gallon) from their peak, and Japan’s disruptions are ending. Automobile production schedules are ramping up and the Institute of Supply Management found that factory activity improved from May to June. Manufacturing employment rose last month, albeit by only 6,000. Even Greece seems, yet again, to have muddled through its latest confidence crisis (but keep your eyes on much bigger Italy).read more

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Initial Reaction
The establishment survey showed a gain of 165,000 a reasonably good but not spectacular print. In contrast, the household survey showed a huge gain of 293,000 jobs.
Once again we see a huge surge in involuntary part-time employment of 278,000. Voluntary part-time employment rose by another 163,000.
Voluntary plus involuntary part-time employment rose by a whopping 441,000 jobs. Take away part-time jobs and there is not all that much to brag about. Indeed, full-time employment fell once again, this month by 148,000.

WASHINGTON — U.S. job growth grew modestly in January and gains in the prior two months were bigger than initially reported, supporting views the economy’s sluggish recovery was on track despite a surprise contraction in output in the final three months of 2012.
Employers added 157,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. There were 127,000 more jobs created in November and December than previously reported.
The unemployment rate, however, edged up 0.1 percentage point to 7.9%.

Yesterday the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released employment data for the month of July, which showed that non-farm payrolls for the month were 209,000. The number, though lower than that of June, still marked a six-month rally economic rally, adding more than 200,000 jobs per month, for the first time since the late ‘90s.
Even though employment was up but the unemployment rate rose as well to 6.2% compared to 6.1% in June. This was due to the rising confidence in the economy and discouraged workers made their way back in to the job market.

Last month, the expected NFP print was 120K, instead we got 204K. Today, the expectations was 185K, while the print, was almost an identical 203K, even as last month's was revised modestly lower to 200K. The unemployment rate dropped from 7.3%, which was also below the 7.2% expected, to only 7.0%. The unemployment rate was derived from a drop in the number of unemployed from 11.3K to 10.9K, while the labor force rose from 153.8K to 155.3K, which also led to a modest bounce in the labor force participation rate which rose from a 35 year low of 62.8% to 63.0%.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 171,000 in October, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.9%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in professional and business services, health care, and retail trade. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for August was revised from +142,000 to +192,000, and the change for September was revised from +114,000 to +148,000.

AMERICAN employment put in a respectable performance in July. Non-farm payrolls rose 117,000, or 0.1%, and the unemployment rate edged lower to 9.1% from 9.2%, both better, but not dramatically so, than Wall Street had expected. Any other time this would have been cause for mild satisfaction. In these grim times, it constitutes a massive relief bordering on joy.

Total nonfarm payroll employment grew by 431,000 in May but that total includes the hiring of 411,000 temporary employees to work on Census 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Private-sector employment changed little (+41,000). Manufacturing, temporary help services, and mining added jobs, while construction employment declined. Economists were predicting over 500,000 job gains (given the large number of temporary census hires).